Baseball’s beautiful mess, plus the most expensive ticket ever
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Good morning! Buy a ticket to a ballgame today. Inside:
The Boys of Summer: Quirky pennant race hits stretch drive
Congratulations to Major League Baseball, which finally gets the brightest American sports spotlight for the next few weeks after the World Cup wraps tomorrow. The second half is underway this weekend. I’ve found a contradiction in the first 97-ish games: This season has been a story of one expected thing surrounded by lots of the unexpected.
Meanwhile, the year has taken on a bit of a last-night-before-the-end-of-the-world hue, with everyone aware that team owners will initiate a lockout of the players soon after the World Series. How long will it last? No clue. Will the sport’s economics have been transformed by then? Great question. All that’s certain is the next few months will be high drama.
The expected thing, which even casual fans have probably noticed: The Dodgers remain the Dodgers. The two-time reigning champs are 62-36. Shohei Ohtani is a Cy Young vote-worthy pitcher who’s having a “down” year at the plate and might only hit a paltry 40 homers. In recent years, the Padres have kept the NL West race interesting. Not this time, with L.A. 11 1/2 games clear of the second-place Diamondbacks by the break.
The unexpected thing: Well, it’s most other things. Here’s the situation, with figures dated to the start of this weekend’s series:
- The White Sox, who had a 101-223 record the prior two years, lead the AL Central in a tie with the Guardians.
- The Red Sox were 14 games under .500 on June 24, having already canned manager Alex Cora. But 13 wins in 15 games heading into the break have them just a hair outside the postseason.
- Last year’s World Series loser, the Blue Jays, are last in the AL East. Vladimir Guerrero’s slugging percentage (.357) is in line with David Eckstein’s career mark.
- The ultimate streaky team is the Cubs, who have two separate 10-game winning streaks and a 10-game losing streak.
- The Pirates (dead last in runs in 2025) are tied for the most runs in baseball (516), but sitting outside a wild-card spot despite a Paul Skenes-led pitching staff that figured to be one of the league’s best.
- The Cardinals, who were supposed to be quasi-tanking this year, occupy an NL playoff spot. So do the Marlins.
- Cal Raleigh, last year’s AL MVP runner-up, has been worth 0.6 WAR, per FanGraphs. The Mariners are constantly on the edge of a wild-card spot and could win the AL West, despite playing the first half in a game under .500.
And nobody really knows what the trade deadline will look like, because only seven teams out of 30 appear to be out of the postseason running. That said, only six teams hit the break with playoff chances of 75 percent or better. What a mess! But a fun one, once you get past the predictability of the Dodgers, and even that is fun in its own way. The villain arc there isn’t new.
Has this been a predictable season, then? Only sort of. Let’s see where it leads as we move on.
News to Know
More DeChambeau drama
It has decidedly not been Bryson DeChambeau’s year, having missed the cut in the first three majors. But it’s been a different story at The Open Championship — or it was until after he walked off the course yesterday and learned officials felt he had improved his lie by trampling the tall grass around his ball on the fifth hole. Did he remonstrate animatedly? Of course. That didn’t stop him getting a two-stroke penalty and entering today’s action — which you can follow here — three shots behind leader Lucas Herbert, instead of one. Still, striking distance.
More News
- Mauricio Pochettino has an offer to stay on as USMNT head coach and said he’ll make a decision about his future “next week.”
- In other vague news, LeBron James said he wants to join a team that will “trust the process,” a slogan associated with the 76ers rebuild around Joel Embiid.
- The average resale price to attend Sunday’s World Cup Final between Spain and Argentina: $12,751. Most expensive sporting event ever.
- Indiana’s football team has a commitment from what would be its first-ever five-star prospect.
- Jimbo Fisher wants to coach again: “If I can recruit without money, I can recruit with money.” His full comments here.
- Bill Belichick, a college football coach, says he likes coaching college football. “I mean, really.” OK!
- The Yankees say imaging shows slugger Aaron Judge’s rib has healed some, but not enough to start playing baseball.
- NFL players seeing natural grass used during the World Cup at stadiums where they play on synthetic turf are saying they want to play on grass, too.
📰 Find more news here 24/7.
Watch Guide
Trevor Ruszkowski / Imagn Images
📺 World Cup: Third-Place Final
England vs. France
5 p.m. ET on Fox
The two sides play for consolation after devastating semifinal losses. Michael Cox’s schematic look back at England’s come-from-ahead defeat to Argentina is worth your time. The headline, which fits the story: “England’s problem at major tournaments? They’re still just too English.” Can you name the World Cup’s historical third-place finishers? Can you?
📺 WNBA: Liberty at Fever
8 p.m. ET on CBS
The second night of a back-to-back for the Fever, who beat the dreadful Storm last night. Caitlin Clark bounced back from an ice-cold shooting stretch by hitting six of 10 threes and 17 of 19 free throws en route to a historic performance. Go figure.
📺 MLB: Dodgers at Yankees
8:08 p.m. ET on Fox
The Yankees won four in a row heading into the break, thanks in large part to the Nationals’ bullpen. They lost the series opener 2-1, and with Aaron Judge still out a while, the club’s contender status is a fair question.
Get tickets to games like this here.
Pulse Picks
Photo: Hannah Peters / Getty Images; design: Will Tullos
The answer to many questions about this World Cup is “because … money.” The result? FIFA has itself the first $10 billion sporting event.
It’s unclear to me exactly when rhubarb season is; all I know is I made this “quick bread” (read: cake) with it last week, and it was excellent. That’s a gift link, since you all were very into last week’s strawberry-lemon loaf. — Torrey Hart
🎥 If you haven’t yet read our investigation into the unraveling of NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller, you can also catch up on it with this quick video.
If you live in a region where fig trees grow, you can make tea out of the leaves. You just tear off a few leaves, dry them out (I do them in the oven at 150°) until they’re crunchy, then crumble them up into tiny pieces. Then just sling a scoop into one of these bad boys, and you have a teabag. The flavor is a sorta coconut-almond-ish flavor, great with honey and a little cream if you’re into that. — Levi Weaver
My entire family loves this electric fly swatter. To activate it, you hold a button on the side of the handle. You can see where this is going: Bug meets strings, bug gets zapped. Abandon all hope, ye flies who enter here. — Evan Dent
We have a deep dive into a big debate as of late: Is men’s college soccer a viable path to the World Cup?
Erewhon smoothies. Overpriced, some would say woke, but very nice. — Phil Hay
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Our investigative piece about fraud allegations against NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller.
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